The 53-year-old cross-dressing dermatologist was accused of attempting to solicit the help of another state prison inmate to kill the Essex County prosecutor who put Sharpe behind bars for murdering his estranged wife.

Sharpe’s murder trial in 2001 was fodder for the tabloids when his secret life became public. It was revealed that he had taken his wife’s birth control pills to grow breasts, worn his daughter’s underwear and had most of his body hair removed.

A convicted rapist told jurors on Tuesday that Sharpe was willing to pay any amount of money to kill the prosecutor who sent him to prison for his wife’s murder.

The two men eventually agreed that $20,000 would do the job, Norman Watne testified.

But defense attorney Janice Bassil told jurors Watne wasn’t believable and that Sharpe was just trying to survive in prison.

Sharpe was charged with soliciting Watne’s help to murder former Essex County prosecutor Robert Weiner. Watne and Sharpe were both inmates at the state prison in Walpole.

“I said, I’d look into it,” Watne testified Tuesday. “I’d make a few phone calls. He told me money was no object. At first, I didn’t know if he was serious.

“He asked me if an assistant district attorney disappeared before his appeal, what would happen. I told him I didn’t know. He asked me straight out if I knew someone who could take care of a DA.”

But, Watne said, Sharpe refused to make a down payment on a hit and wanted to read Weiner’s obituary in the newspaper before paying any money.

Watne reported his conversations with Sharpe about killing Weiner to prison authorities. He refused to wear a wire but did agree to talk to Sharpe again while a corrections officer listened nearby.

Bassil, the defense attorney, said Sharpe was aware that Weiner would play no role in his appeal, which is automatic upon a first-degree murder conviction.

She said at the time Sharpe had just been convicted of murdering his wife and all he was trying to do was survive in prison.

“He was prey to other criminals who knew what the system was about,” Bassil said. “He was a doctor. He was wealthy. He was a celebrity prisoner.”

Bassil said Watne was a problem inmate who was just attempting to regain privileges, such as phone calls to his four children, that had been taken away from him.

“He is a violent and threatening predator and he is proud of it,” she said. “This so-called scheme makes no sense whatsoever.”

Prosecutor John Stapleton admitted that Watne wasn’t a “perfect witness.”

Stapleton said Smith, the corrections officer, would back up Watne’s testimony about the murder plan.

Before the trial began, Judge Thomas A. Connors rejected a defense motion to suppress Smith’s statements regarding the conversation he allegedly heard between Sharpe and Watne in February 2002.

Watne, 40, who has been in prison for nearly 10 years, is due for release in December 2008.

The Lowell native was given a suspended sentence for aggravated rape in the early 1990s. When he violated terms of his release, he was ordered to serve 5 to 7 years. Watne was given additional prison time for attacking corrections officers.

Sharpe, who had a dermatology practice in Gloucester, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 2001 for shooting his estranged wife Karen to death at her North Shore home.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.